Champion Three-Year-Old Thoroughbreds Who Just Missed Their Triple Crown Glory

The Immensely popular Smarty Jones! - Smarty Jones had royal blood flowing through his veins, the kind of royalty that almost made you want to check to see if his blood were dark blue instead of red.  What kind of royalty?  You want names?  Okay, you got names.  How’s Foolish Pleasure, Northern Dancer, and Count Fleet for you?  More names you say?  Fine.  He has Mr. Prospector in his blood, but that name isn’t as nearly as imposing as the fact that he also has two names in him that tower, TOWER, over the sport like Greek and Roman Gods:  Man o’ War and Secretariat.  

But even though his blood was blue with royalty, Smarty Jones was looked at as a people’s horse.  He wasn’t at one of the most well-known farms.  His jockey was not a household name, and the horse himself was just a little guy, barely over 15.2 hands.  So when this little horse took the country by storm when he won the Kentucky Derby in 2004, he really had people talking.  We all know that there has been no Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978, but in the latter half of the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st Century, there have been several horses that won the first two legs.  Silver Charm in 1997, Real Quiet in 1998, Funny Cide, and then Big Brown in 2008.  Somehow, none of those horses captured the imagination of the public like Smarty Jones did.

With John Servis as his trainer, Smarty Jones recovered from a serious head injury sustained from banging his head in training in early 2003 and, fully healed, won his maiden race by almost 8 lengths, with Stewart Elliott aboard.  His second and final race as a two-year-old showed the racing community that Smarty Jones was something to see, as he took the Pennsylvania Nursery Stakes by a dominating 15 lengths.  At 3, he won the Count Fleet Stakes by an easy 5.  Servis then shipped him to Oaklawn Park where he won the Southwest, Rebel, and the Arkansas Derby, all in dominant fashion.  He was now undefeated in six starts, but was not the favorite in the 2004 Kentucky Derby.  He showed the world how wrong the experts were, winning by an easy 2 ¾ lengths.  The best was yet to come.

Smarty Jones was taken to Pimlico to run in the Preakness.  In the interim he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and the public adored him.  Many of the experts still expressed doubt, however.  That doubt was proved foolish by Smarty Jones, though, as he set the record for margin of victory in the Preakness, winning by an astounding 11 ½ lengths!  As mentioned previously, there had been some horses in the years just before Smarty Jones to flirt with a Triple Crown, but this time the public was in a frenzy not seen since 1973 and Secretariat.

120,139 people jammed Belmont Park to the gills to see Smarty Jones try to take home the first Triple Crown since Affirmed.  Television ratings for the race were the highest for any horse race in 14 years.  The stage was set.  The gate opened, and Smarty Jones took off with the field, chasing history.  The crowd roared with approval as Smarty Jones took the lead early.  He seemed to be flying with each stride.  As they passed the quarter pole with the lead, Smarty Jones’ 1 ¼ fraction was fast enough to win every Kentucky Derby in history except for three, and some experts felt that was too fast, that running that fast up to that point would leave the colt with no gas in the tank for the ¼ of a mile to the finish.  But the fans were cheering, screaming, ROARING, and it didn’t seem he could lose at that point.  

Then it happened.  Birdstone had been lurking about 7 or 8 lengths back at the quarter pole, and when Smarty Jones began to falter in the stretch, Birdstone had plenty left to run him down in the final furlong of the race.  Smarty Jones had finished second and been denied the Triple Crown.  Still, the fans gave him a standing ovation as Elliott led him back towards the grandstand.  He had earned the respect of millions.